Pumpkins

For Family Home Evening we carved pumpkins. For the 4th year running we again had to force Corbin to touch the gunk inside under threat of skipping the carving, but this year Makelle jumped right in on her own and actually helped pull out all the seeds.




Corbin has now decided he is big enough to make his own jack-o-lantern and set out to create an elaborate design. Unfortunately, he sort of had a hard time understanding that you have to just draw shapes that are independent of each other and can be cut out, so he experienced a bit of frustration as time after time we kept saying, “nope sorry, that one won’t work.” He finally came up with a good design that worked well though and I was able to cut it out for him.



Dad helped Makelle create her red angry bird… she was so fun, working hard to trace her design just like Dad and Corbin were doing. I am pretty sure she thought she was doing all the work while we acted as her helpers, and she was probably right :)



After they finished their designs we made caramel apples while leaving Daddy to finish all the hard work of actually carving out the elaborate angry bird.



He did a great job and has far more patience than I :)

Soccer

Corbin has been playing his second season of soccer this fall. He actually has been doing a lot worse than last time, but having a blast doing it! We signed him up on the same team as his best little buddy that lives next door and I have been the assistant coach, so I think he has been distracted from the actual game. At one point we looked up to see him playing ring-around-the-rosies with the other Corbin and had to roll our eyes a little. He did tell us at one point that he doesn’t like getting the ball as much this time because there is another kid on his team that is faster than him and he says that he always takes the ball from him after he gets it even though they are on the same team. He doesn’t seem to realize that he did the same thing to the other kids on his team last season. Oh well, it is all part of learning the game I suppose. As long he tells us he is having fun, we will try to control our frustrations at watching him run around crazy on the field rather than playing soccer and just let him enjoy it!



At his last game he got to meet Leo the Lion from Real Salt Lake and thought it was sooo fun trying to get the ball past him and score a goal during their practice session. I am pretty sure it was the highlight of the season for him.


Afterwards they handed out ticket vouchers to attend a Real game in Sandy and we took Corbin down on the South Davis Rec night and they let him march out onto the field with all the other little league soccer kids. He loved it! They made us drop off our 4-year-old in a little entrance tunnel area and leave him there alone for about 45 minutes while we waited up in the bleachers for the game to start. Needless to say that idea made me a little nervous so I found another parent of one of the little kids and we told them to be friends and stick together and asked some middle school girls to make sure they stayed by them. We were a little surprised to see just how well our plan worked when we saw them march out holding hands and laughing together as they ran around the field, surround on all sides by the entire yellow girls’ team, herding them along. He did great and had fun, it is just getting hard to accept how big he is getting and learn to let go a little.

Primary

Corbin's class at church consists of 4 little boys that are by far the most active kids in the entire primary. This year their teacher has been Sister Brown, who somehow has done an excellent job at calming them down and teaching them the gospel. He is learning a lot, especially about how to be reverent while sitting next to your best buddies. They are a fun little gang and we are so grateful to Sister Brown for her patience!


Corbin Miller, Tyler Ormsby, Jan Brown, Koda Hildreth and Mikey Arbuckle.

Earlier this year I got called to teach the Sunbeam class, so I get to sit next to Corbin's class in the primary room and watch him (or occasionally glare at him :) during singing and sharing time, which has been fun. I have a cute little group of kids that seem far to young to teach anything too, yet they just amaze you every week with their understanding and sweet spirits.



Rosie Clark, Emily Jackson, Madi Pierson, Corbin Hancock and Camden Lawrence.

October Festivities

To get in the holiday spirit (and to occupy their busy little minds) we painted Halloween masks for Family Home Evening this week. It was pretty cute. They LOVE to paint, but I seem to struggle with letting them sometimes… I just get too lazy to deal with the all the work of getting things ready and cleaning up after toddler painting projects. But they are getting better and Makelle actually kept most of her paint on her mask rather than on herself this time, so we may get to do more painting in the future… we’ll see how ambitious I get :)




Grandma Lloyd make the kids a Halloween count down calendar. Everyday, first thing in the morning we wake up to the kids yelling, “Mommy, look at what prize we got today!!” and waving some cute little trinket or treat in our faces. Let’s just say they definitely are enjoying the thrill of having something to look forward to each day. And surprisingly enough Makelle hasn’t even cheated and started taking things down prematurely either, so it also seems to be teaching patience at the same time! They do occasionally walk by and stop to inspect what is coming up and point out the things they are most excited about and what days they think will be the best. They really are at a fun age right now.

Conference

Over conference weekend this year, we were all a little under the weather but still managed to get up and make a nice pancake breakfast. The weather is starting to turn cool and to get in the autumn mood we decided to go with pumpkin pancakes, a definite favorite at our house.

After wards we all cuddled up on the couch and spent the weekend listening to the words of the prophet and apostles. It was great relaxing weekend, which is just what we needed to get over this sickness.